Popular online publishing platform Substack is facing backlash over its decision to continue allowing Nazi literature on its site.
The company announced last month that it would not block extremist speech or hate symbols from the independent journalism, blogging and newsletter hub as long as writers don’t incite violence.
On Thursday, one of the site’s top newsletters, Platformer, warned that it is considering leaving Substack over its position, writing that the fast-growing platform should adopt policies like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, which prohibit the monetization of hate speech.
The issue came to the forefront when The Atlantic published a November piece alleging the site “has a Nazi problem,” and detailing how it paid substantial sums of money to people like white supremacist Richard Spencer.
Other newsletters have also also threatened to withdraw from Substack — which allows content creators to pocket 90% of profits made on the site, over its policy in recent weeks, NBC News reported.
Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie clarified in his December statement that the platform is committed to protecting “individual rights and civil liberties” while promoting open discourse.
“I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either—we wish no-one held those views. But some people do hold those and other extreme views,” McKenzie said.
“Given that, we don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away—in fact, it makes it worse.”
Almost 250 writers signed a petition last month asking Substack to explain why it “promote[s] and allow[s] the monetization of sites that traffic in white nationalism?”
One of the petition organizers, Marisa Kabas, a Brooklyn-based writer and a third-generation Holocaust survivor who writes for MSNBC, reportedly said that she and many of her fellow authors were weighing their next move.
“They went out of their way to welcome Nazis and extremists onto the platform,” Kabas told her station’s parent company.
Substack did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post Sunday.